Very interesting article. It’s difficult to make blanket (and causal) statements based on one research study. Obviously, you’ll find exceptions to every rule and there are plenty of religious people who are very intelligent, as well.

I think there are way more factors that play into this though then just intelligence.

They aren’t “dumber,” either. Belief or unbelief doesn’t have anything to do with intelligence levels. If you study human history, some of the most brilliant minds ever to walk this earth were believers. Also, many were non-believers.

I’m not sure that a handful of people on the internet can answer that question – but I do believe that a meta-analysis of 60+ studies analyzing 10,000+ people from all different researchers and eras can definitely show some accurate statistical trends.

@Sunfire: This isn’t saying that all religious people are dumb. It’s saying if you aggregate all believers vs. non-believers, the average IQ in non-believers is higher. It’s like saying that Bolivian people are, on average, shorter than Americans – obviously there are many many Americans who are shorter than many many Bolivians…

Based on education level alone, various believers of different forms of Christianity in the US are MORE likely than everyone else to have only a high school level education or “some college” and less likely to have a college degree and graduate degree.

So generally people who follow Christian faiths are less likely to have advanced degrees than other followers/athiests. It varies according to specific denominations. Some are heavily related to economic and cultural variables IMO.

Some religions tend to be exactly the opposite though (Jewish and various Asian-based religions) and their believers tend to have higher degrees.

“Nearly half of Hindus in the U.S., one-third of Jews and a quarter of Buddhists have obtained post-graduate education, compared with only about one-in-ten of the adult population overall. Hindus and Jews are also much more likely than other groups to report high income levels.”

Also in my experience a larger percentage of religious scholars are athiest/agnostic than those who follow some type of faith. Very understandable to me.